%0 Report %D 2021 %T Conservation of handfishes and their habitats – Final Report 2020 %A Jemina F. Stuart-Smith %A T P Lynch %A Felicity McEnnulty %A Mark Green %A C Devine %A Trotter, Andrew %A Tyson Bessell %A Lincoln Wong %A Paul Hale %A Andrew Martini %A Rick D Stuart-Smith %A Neville Barrett %K Conservation %K threatened species %X

This final report covers conservation work for red and spotted handfishes during 2019-2020. For red handfish this includes monitoring of juveniles in the wild immediately after their release following captive-rearing. Juveniles were recorded on all three monitoring surveys post release, indicating initial success of this conservation strategy to bolster wild population numbers. This report includes investigation into sex-determination in adults using morphometrics and found a lack of clear separation between males and females, indicating that focus should be on other methods for non-destructive sex determination. 

For spotted handfish this report includes population dynamics from 22 years of monitoring and found that within the Derwent estuary, both genomics and population dynamics suggest a well-structured population, with local populations acting in isolation from each other, or small groups. There had been an overall decline in the Derwent estuary’s Spotted handfish population.

%G eng %0 Report %D 2020 %T Conservation of handfish and their habitats – Annual Report 2019 %A T P Lynch %A Sharon A Appleyard %A Lincoln Wong %A Andrew Martini %A Tyson Bessell %A Jemina F. Stuart-Smith %A Leah Soo %A Stefanie Faber %A C Devine %A Lauren Hardiman %K artificial spawning habitat %K Conservation %K DNA %K environmentally sensitive mooring %K handfish %K survey %X

We have completed and analysed performance assessment surveys at nine local population sites for spotted handfish in the Derwent estuary from 2015-2019. To this time series we have also incorporated historic data for individual sites back to 1998. Local populations generally show stability of occurrence but with some difference in abundance (as measured by estimates of fish densities per habitat) by years.

%8 19 Jun 2020 %G eng %0 Report %D 2020 %T A cross continental scale comparison of Australian offshore charter boat and tournament recreational fisheries research and its applications to Marine Park and fisheries management %A T P Lynch %A C B Smallwood %A Joel Williams %A F Ochwada-Doyle %A C Devine %K Australian Marine Park monitoring %K charter boat fishing %K recreational fishing %K surveys %K tournament game fishery %X

Recreational fisheries are complex at many levels. One specific area of complexity is reporting on various components of the sector. Alongside state-wide surveys of the general shore- and boat-based recreational fishery, two other components, the charter boat (tour operator) fishery and the tournament game fishery are assessed through logbook returns in some jurisdictions. The functionality of these returns was investigated for their potential use by Australian Marine Parks (AMPs) and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA), with Western Australia (WA) and New South Wales (NSW) used as case studies.

%8 6 Jul 2020 %G eng %0 Journal Article %J ICES Journal of Marine Science %D 2020 %T Trail camera video systems: investigating their utility in interpreting patterns of marine, recreational trailer-boat fishers’ access to an offshore Marine Park in differing weather conditions. %A T P Lynch %A Foster, S %A C Devine %A A Hegarty %A Felicity McEnnulty %A M Burton %A Lyle, J M %E Flannery, Wesley %K anglers %K interviews %K Marine Park %K marine social science research %K MPA %K offshore fisheries %K sensor array %K the human dimension %K weather %K wildlife biology %X

When monitoring marine recreational fishers at sub-bio-regional scales—for example those who are accessing a Marine Park—on-site sampling is often required. This poses various logistical challenges, such as the efficient timing of intercept interviews. Here, we examine these challenges, combining trail cameras, closed-circuit television (CCTV), weather stations, and interviews at boat ramps that bracket an offshore Marine Park. Trail camera results were similar to those from a CCTV system co-located at one of the boat ramps. Fishers’ boat launches peaked early, but return times varied considerably by ramp and weather. Both the numbers of launches and trip durations were strongly responsive to good weather, particularly at ramps used for offshore fishing. Weather was a more important factor to predict the likelihood of intercept interview opportunities than holiday period, which may reflect changing dynamics in work culture and improvements in weather prediction. Interviewed fishers reported preferences to individual ramps over the fishing season and nearly all trips to the Marine Park were reported by fishers accessing just one ramp. The strong relationships between fishing, weather, and ramp, observed by the trail camera and correlated with the weather station data, may allow for the efficient targeting of intercept interviews and potentially the modelling of fishing effort.

%B ICES Journal of Marine Science %V 77 %P 3110 - 3126 %8 25 Nov 2020 %G eng %U https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/77/7-8/3110/6000677 %N 7-8 %9 Journal %R 10.1093/icesjms/fsaa209 %0 Report %D 2019 %T Conservation of handfish and their habitats – Annual Report 2018 %A T P Lynch %A Tyson Bessell %A Alexander Hormann %A C Devine %K Spotted handfish %X

In 2018 we completed the fourth round of annual performance assessment surveys for spotted handfish across the 9 Derwent Estuary study sites. This provides 62 data points in total, with 36 points from our NESP work building on our 26 data points from previous studies. Two results of interest from this year were the discovery of fish, after a year’s absence, at the Ralphs Bay site and a continued decline in numbers at Mary Anne Bay. For the Ralphs Bay site the fish are still in very low numbers, which is consistent with what we have observed since 2015. This suggests that when densities of fish dip below 3-5 fish per hectare then the monitoring program does not have the sensitivity to reliably detect their presence. For the Mary Anne Bay site the recent trend has seen a decline in numbers back to levels that are more commonly seen at numerous other sites. Several student projects this year provided important context to both this results and conservation of the species in general.

The first of these were some preliminary results from Mr Alex Hormanns’ UTAS Masters project. This involved the planting of 5000 Artificial Spawning Habitats (ASH) into 5 site based arrays, made up of 50:50 mixes of plastic and ceramic ASH. When we surveyed the arrays numerous eggs masses were being guarded by fish who had spawned onto ASH, with the fish showing a preference for ceramic over plastic ASH. The relative use of ceramic ASH was also higher than the raw numbers suggested as ceramics had a lower survival rate than plastic, with 1964 plastic and 1524 ceramic ASH or 3488 out of the 5000 remaining at the end of the surveys. One variable that seems to explain the amount of ASH used at a particular site was the densities of stalked ascidian which provide natural spawning habitat. Sites that had ascidian densities larger than 0.05 per m2 saw very low ASH use. The sites that saw the most ASH use had relatively low densities of both ascidians and spotted handfish. We have now incorporated ascidian counts into the monitoring program and will use these data to plan further ASH planting.

The second piece of information was from Mr Tyson Bessell’s UTAS honours project (first class), ‘Biological Parameters of the Spotted Handfish’. This work demonstrated the accuracy of the I3S autonomous pattern recognition program for identifying spotted handfish – this allowed us to exclude technical issues as a reason for low recapture rates. Tyson then used both recapture data of repeated length measurements of wild fish in combination with a small number of opportunistically collected otoliths to model the age of the fish. The oldest fish in the population appear to be 10 years old, however based on length frequency data only 10% of the fish within the sample population are older than 5 years. Sexual maturity occurs around 2 years of age so most fish will have a 1-3 year window of opportunity to reproduce. Important caveats to this work are that it is based on a limited number of both recaptures (n=13) and otoliths (n = 7) and only one otolith was from a female.

From our new insights into handfish biology and conservation we are starting to be able to develop an understanding of the species local population dynamics. Aspect of our monitoring program that have previously remained un-explained were: trends of declines across years, variability between years and increases in densities between the current and historic data, as well as low recapture rates. These site population dynamics and re-capture rates may now be explainable based on the relatively short lifespan of the species and spawning success related to the availability of natural or artificial spawning habitat. While our monitoring program can provide density estimates, the likelihood of recapturing an individual with is low due to rapid natural mortality (90% dead two years after first capture) when placed in the context of annual sampling. Also, if stalked ascidians density are by nature stochastic then there will be problems with recruitment, especially if stochasticity increases or there is a long-term average decrease in ascidians or other natural spawning habitat due to grazing by introduced marine pests or changes to catchment processes. If spawning fails or is reduced then declines over time periods 1-4 years will occur as cohorts pass through their breeding period and natural mortality cumulatively removes most individuals from local populations.

This relatively short lifespan is also of importance to efforts to captive breed the species. While animals bred in captivity in 2017, none did in 2018. Clearly solutions to enhance breeding will need to be found quite quickly before the brood stock and captive bred fish die.

%8 5 Jun 2019 %G eng %0 Journal Article %J ICES Journal of Marine Science %D 2019 %T A cross continental scale comparison of Australian offshore recreational fisheries research and its applications to Marine Park and fisheries management %A T P Lynch %A C B Smallwood %A Ochwada-Doyle, F A %A Lyle, J %A Joel Williams %A K L Ryan %A C Devine %A Gibson, B %A Alan Jordan %E Ruth Thurstan %K cross-jurisdictional fisheries %K Hunter Marine Park %K marine protected areas (MPAs) %K marine recreational fisheries (MRFs) %K national survey %K Ningaloo Marine Park %K offshore fisheries %X

Recreational fishing is popular in Australia and is managed by individual states in consultation with the Commonwealth for those fisheries that they regulate and also for Australian Marine Parks (AMPs). Fishers regularly access both state and offshore Commonwealth waters but this offshore component of the recreational fishery is poorly understood. Our study tested the functionality of existing state-based surveys in Western Australia (WA) and New South Wales (NSW) to better inform Commonwealth fisheries and AMP managers about recreational fishing in their jurisdictions. Catch estimates for nine species of interest to the Commonwealth were developed and two case study AMPs [Ningaloo (WA) and The Hunter (NSW)] were also chosen to test the ability of the state survey data to be disaggregated to the park scale. As each state’s fishery survey designs were contextual to their own management needs, the application of the data to Commonwealth jurisdictions were limited by their statistical power, however aspects of each states surveys still provided useful information. Continued evolution of state-wide survey methods, including collection of precise spatial data, and regional over-sampling would be beneficial, particularly where there are multiple stakeholder and jurisdictional interests. National coordination, to temporally align state surveys, would also add value to the existing approaches.

This free access link may be posted to your personal/institutional website. However, the article should only be viewed from the Oxford Academic website and not posted to your own personal/institutional web site or that of other third parties:  https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/advance-article/doi/10.1093/icesjms/fsz092/5513323?guestAccessKey=2fa16258-0c95-4961-8ceb-89ded3296082

%B ICES Journal of Marine Science %8 10 Jun 2019 %G eng %U https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/advance-article/doi/10.1093/icesjms/fsz092/5513323 %R 10.1093/icesjms/fsz092 %0 Report %D 2019 %T Recreational fishing in Commonwealth waters %A T P Lynch %A C B Smallwood %A Ochwada-Doyle, F %A Joel Williams %A K L Ryan %A C Devine %A Gibson, B %A Burton, Michael %A A Hegarty %A Lyle, J %A Scott D Foster %A Alan Jordan %K climate change %K Commonwealth waters %K fishing effort %K harvest %K Offshore recreational fishing %X

Recreational fishers regularly access both state and offshore Commonwealth waters but offshore fishing is poorly understood. There has been recent global and Australian growth in offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and a better understanding of recreational fishers accessing both these MPAs, as well as offshore stocks of fish more generally, is important for sustainability of catch, communication and compliance. Recreational fishing is popular in Australia and is managed by individual States in collaboration with the Commonwealth agencies: the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) and Australian Marine Parks (AMP). Our study investigated two methodological approaches to gain a better understanding of recreational fishing in Commonwealth waters (>3 nautical miles offshore).

First, we undertook a pan-continental scale comparison of Australian offshore recreational fisheries research and its applications to fisheries and marine park management. In the absence of data collection on recreational fishing in offshore waters by the Commonwealth, we examined two state-wide Marine Recreational Fishery (MRF) surveys, conducted throughout Western Australia (WA) and New South Wales (NSW), to see if they could meet the Commonwealth’s information needs. The specific aims included (1) a comparison of state-based approaches for data collection in WA and NSW, (2) estimates (with associated uncertainty) of catch occurring state-wide for nine species of interest to AFMA and (3) estimates (with associated uncertainty) of fishing effort and catch (all species) occurring within two AMP: Ningaloo Marine Park (NMP) in WA and the Hunter Marine Park (HMP) in NSW.

We also undertook smaller scale on-site surveys along the east coast of Tasmania over a busy holiday period using a novel application of trail cameras combined with interviews on boat ramps of marine recreational trailer-boat fishers. We did this to investigate fishers’ behaviours, perceptions and distributions in relation to a well-established offshore marine park. Our aims were to (1) trial the usefulness of trail cameras to collect novel primary data that can be used in management, (2) to guide collection of on-site interview data for anglers, especially those fishing offshore, and (3) to test an interview questionnaire for usefulness in investigating perceptions and catch of fishers.

%8 12 Jun 2019 %G eng %0 Report %D 2018 %T Procedures and methods for establishment of captive breeding populations of spotted handfish %A T P Lynch %A Lincoln Wong %A Tim Fountain %A C Devine %K captive breeding %K Spotted handfish %X

Brood stocks were established at two institutes, with 10 animals each to Seahorse World and SEA LIFE Melbourne Aquarium. Both institutes are known to have at least one fertile pair due to breeding occurring in captivity following collection. The captive population is now 116 fish (30/12/2017) of which 20 are adults or sub-adults and 96 are captive bred juveniles. No fish have died during this process which was unexpected as previously high mortality occurred for juveniles. Our use of marine-tank chiller units, which have become cheaply available since the previous captive breeding work in the mid-1990s, may be responsible for this low mortality.

Knowledge transfer to industry partners (Seahorse World and SEA LIFE Melbourne Aquarium) by CSIRO officers for captive breeding of handfish was made through personal visits, phone calls and the provision of all reports and laboratory notes. A standard operating procedure was developed for data processing and transfer of animals via freight. A stud book was also established - Spotted handfish ambassador fish program: captive fish studbook. See References.

Compared to previous years, similar results were obtained for fish densities at the nine long-term monitoring sites, however this year the observed decline at Ralphs Bay continued to its conclusion with no fish observed during 2017.

%8 03 Oct 2018 %G eng